Health officials share conflicting views about another Covid-19 wave
The health sector has different opinions about the potential of a fifth coronavirus surge, with the occurrence of the new Omicron BA.2 variant in Jamaica. According to recent reports, some of the island’s hospitals have seen a decrease in Covid-19 cases. There are about two suspected cases at the May Pen Hospital, while the Mandeville Regional Hospital has no cases. But there are about 28 suspected cases at the Spanish Town Hospital, with a positive case and at the St Ann’s Bay Regional Hospital, it is suspected that seven people have the virus.
In a media report, the President of the Medical Association of Jamaica, Dr Brian James, notes that there might be an increase in the country’s COVID-19 cases because of the new Omicron virus. “That is what we’ve seen in many countries from which people travel to and from Jamaica, like the UK, US, and even China. So, there will very likely be a spike,” he said. “What we should do is ensure that we implement the lessons that we’ve learnt from our last two years with the pandemic. We cannot make those lessons go to waste. We should ensure that we limit the possibility of spread throughout the communities as much as possible, following the well-proven precautions, the wearing of masks, avoiding crowds, and handwashing,” he added.
Further, James thinks the revocation of the Disaster Risk Management Act (DRMA) have swayed the public’s judgement of the virus. “I think the reversal of the mask mandate may have given people the impression that COVID is over, and it clearly isn’t. That’s why we at MAJ have been saying it’s not over. Jamaica has no special immunity to COVID. People think that the fact that they are tired of COVID and there is COVID fatigue that has something to do with how the virus behaves. It does not, at all,” James said. “The virus has a mandate to infect its host and replicate as much as it can and it does not care whether the host is tired or fed up or fatigued, and Jamaica is particularly vulnerable because only 24 per cent of our population is fully vaccinated,” he added.
In another report, president of the Nurses Association of Jamaica, Patsy Edwards-Henry, argued that there might not be a spike in cases because of the new variant. “What we have noticed since the beginning of the year, even with the fourth wave, the hospitalisation rates steadily started to decline, so I do believe that, while we do have COVID-19 with us, we may not see a spike; we may see intervals of increases and then it goes back down,” she said. “But, based on the epidemiology of viruses, I’m not expecting us to have another out of control spike, not that it cannot happen, but we are hoping that as we gradually learn to live with COVID, that it now becomes endemic instead of pandemic”, Edwards-Henry added.
Up to Thursday, Jamaica was at a positivity rate of 11.6 per cent.
